Crone Berlin shows till 23 December 2020 the solo exhibition „Maybe“ by the German artist Peter Welz. On view are new photographic works in which he deals with Andy Warhol’s legendary Screen Tests and General Idea cofounder AA Bronson.

The exhibition is divided into two series of work that intertwine both formally and in terms of content. Both focus on the idea of bringing moving images to a standstill while searching for space within the surface.

In the first series of works, Welz takes up Andy Warhol’s experimental films. He uses an exhibition catalogue for this purpose, which was produced in 2004 in connection with the exhibition Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Welz pierces the catalogue and thus leaves traces on every page of the book. These are then laminated onto black primed canvas. The monochrome brush traces on the canvas refers to the long tradition of painting, while, at the same time, the rectangular format of the works is reminiscent of the screens over which Warhol’s black-and-white films normally flicker.

Another moment comes to the interweaving of painting and film: Welz not only pierces the book pages, but also the canvas, thus making the white wall behind it visible. Through the cutouts, Welz breaks with the illusionism of photography and instead makes the materiality of the medium visible, questioning the flatness of the canvas and investigating its spatial and sculptural potential.

The second complex of works in the exhibition is dedicated to the Canadian artist and curator AA Bronson, who, as cofounder of the artists’ collective General Idea, enjoys cult status today. The photographic studies and collages go back to a video installation realized in 2019, in which Welz had AA Bronson constantly surrounded and filmed by two cameras.

Peter Welz was born in 1972 in Lauingen, Germany. His extensive video and photo installations have been shown at the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Art Mexico, National Museum of Modern Art (MOMAT), Tokyo, and the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin.